EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE.
I FOUND the passage in Jeremiah to which you referred the sister a special help to me yesterday. I had a difficult task to perform, and I made the promise mine, and found help. I can truly say, May the Lord bless this work. My heart was touched with the first appeal, in the REVIEW AND HERALD of December, 1898, and I have been trying to do my duty ever since. I have found a new meaning to life. I have a work to do in my home. The Lord is good, and his ways are past finding out. One of my boys has been sick for over two years. The doctors said there was no help for him; but the Lord has helped him, and he is getting better. To the Lord be all the praise. The following is an extract from a letter written by a sister nearly seventy-four years old, who is visiting among relatives not in the truth:— I spoke at their meeting last Sunday, with the applause of all. I spoke praises to the Saviour, and touched lightly upon what sin is, and the laws of life and answers to prayer. They stand on the same Bible, without creed, that we do. If I can walk before them without exciting their prejudice, I may be a benefit to them. Yesterday I went to a rag-bee, to piece carpet rags, and read to the sisters “What and How to Answer,” by Mrs. S. M. I. Henry. I have read the leaflet entitled “A Woman-Ministry” to a neighbor across the way, with much pleasure to myself, and, I think, to the listener. If I could sell some of our smaller publications, I should be happy. I married young, and for twenty-five years have chafed under the yoke of a disappointed life, failing to see that perhaps this was the only way the Lord could save me. I have often told the Lord to bring anything upon me necessary to fit me to dwell with him, and then, when trials came, have I murmured and complained. I wonder how the Lord could have so much patience with me. But I am glad I am letting him teach me through his word and through his servants. I have been appointed secretary of the Woman’s Gospel Work at this place, and also have been chosen to visit among the sick and needy. I have not much time to do the work, but the other members have each promised to visit as many as they can, and report to me each week; so I shall be able to make a report of the work that is being done. We are very much scattered, living from six to fifteen miles apart; but we have plenty of room for each to do a great deal of work, and so reap a bountiful harvest. My duties at home prevent me from doing much except among my near neighbors; and all the summer I did little except pay them a friendly call, offer a helping hand, or say an encouraging word whenever I could. This winter I was impressed to begin a little work among the children, who know but very little, if anything, about Jesus and his love, as most of the neighbors are not professors of religion. I at once sent for Scripture text cards, two copies of our Sabbath-school song book, solicited several weekly copies of Our Little Friend and of the Youth’s Instructor. I then visited each family, and found them glad to have their children come. They said they could not afford to dress them well enough to go to the churches. So now I have a Sunday-school class of eleven, and realize the blessing that comes in the effort to do for others. I can not refrain from writing to you, and thanking you for ever opening up a Woman’s page in the REVIEW AND HERALD. Words are inadequate to express the amount of good I am getting out of it. I never have taken part in it because of lack of an education, but I do praise the Lord for the help and courage he gives us in the experience of others. Many times I have thought that no one had an experience quite so trying as mine. I have had experiences when it seemed as if reason would be dethroned, and, as one sister expressed it, it was enough to turn one’s hair gray in a night. I have thought that if this summer’s experiences did not purify me, or kill me, nothing ever would. It seemed one day as if the Lord gave me my choice—I could let it kill me or purify me, just as I liked; and to-night I rejoice in the refining process that is going on in my life. One of our boys was keeping company that was not the best, and it seemed as if I could say nothing to cause him to see his condition. My husband, being a man of the world, had no desire to help in teaching principles of religion in our family, and I, having become discouraged, had discontinued family worship. I thought it was best not to keep it up, as I was the only one who seemed interested in it. My son’s course troubled me so that I became ill; and as I lay on my bed pondering what I should do, the Spirit of the Lord impressed me to get up and read and pray in my family, and to return thanks at the table, and that if I did this, the cloud of discouragement would break. I did so, and found the Lord true. I still have family worship night and morning, and find myself strengthened, and I can see that the enemy is making tracks to get away from my house; and from my children.